Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right. ~ Henry Ford
Starting or maintaining a business isn’t always easy. Life happens and there are bumps in the road from time to time. Nothing in life is perfect, not even the best business. It’s how you well you handle these, hurdles, bumps and difficulties that will determine how well you do with your business.
I have had days where I felt grumpy and like throwing in the towel. In those moments I felt like just giving everything up and going back to just being a stay at home mom. I might have had some problem or another going on or maybe I wasn’t able to do something technical that I needed done and felt annoyed. It really doesn’t matter what the issue was, it was hindrance and causing me to be unproductive. It’s hard to get anything done when your heart isn’t into it.
Those moods never lasted too long and I never actually made steps towards ending my business. I really did love and still love what I do so why end something that I really enjoy because I had a bad day or some obstacle got in my way. Over time I learned how to deal with problems when they arose. What I have learned is that a problem is only temporary and there is always a solution even if I can’t see it at that moment. It’s how I choose my next moves that helps determine the outcome for me. My “Why” or reason for doing what I do keeps me going. Giving up isn’t a part of my plan.
One thing I see all to often in social media is people complaining that their business isn’t working in the very same spots that they are advertising in. They do this because they are frustrated and at those moments they may not see a clear solution so they let out their frustrations through status updates.
This is a huge no no because the ones that see you talking about how bad your business is going aren’t going to be hyped up to listen to your company’s audio, watch your video, sign up for your mailing list, join your team or promote your products if you run your own business, when you are showing them that doing what you do sucks and that your products don’t sell.
You must believe in you and in what you are doing before you can expect anyone to take you seriously or join you in your venture. Remember that while social media can be your best friend it can also be your worst enemy when you spew negativity out against your own self or business.
Know that you aren’t the only person who ever has a bad day. You aren’t the only person who has ever had a problem building their team or bringing in sales. You may think that you are alone but you aren’t. The difference in you who may not be achieving what they desire and one who does is usually training. Think about when you learned to cook or drive. There are steps involved and if you miss a step or two, it usually doesn’t turn out right but with the right training you can bake perfect cakes and casseroles or parallel park like it’s no big deal.
When running a business you need the right training for your particular business. You need to know about the products you sell or how your compensation plan works or what your product or service can do for your potential customers. No matter what type of business you have you need to utilize social media in order to gain a larger target audience.
Learning can make the difference in achieving your wildest dreams and not being able to make a single sale of your services and products, or not being able recruit a single teammate or sign up to your emailing list.
When you are having a bad day and you feel like shouting, virtually through social media to vent out all your frustrations, take a moment to just breathe and relax. Step away from the ipad, iphone or laptop. Stop everything and take a time out to get yourself together.
Ask yourself:
- Do I really believe in what I’m doing?
- Is there a need for the products or services that I am offering?
- Do I enjoy what I do?
- Am I unsure about all of the steps required to run my business?
Letting go of negativity will clear your mind and allow you to think better. Now you can find a solution and you didn’t ruin your reputation or the reputation of your business in the process. How you feel while in a bad mood could be completely different from how you feel when you can just breathe and think clearly. Sometimes all it takes is one negative comment about something to turn someone off from it altogether.
As the saying goes, you only have one time to make a first impression so make sure that the impression others get about you and your business is positive. Positive draws in where negativity repels. If you don’t think you can cut it as a business person or if you think that your business is horrible and you openly convey those thoughts because you are going through a rough patch, do you honestly think that your audience will believe in you.
Remove negativity from around as you as much as your possibly can. If you can’t get along with certain people online because you clash or they: make you uncomfortable, reek negativity, down you or even have wronged you somehow in your business, remove them. It really is that simple. Most social media sites have a block or delete button. Use it if you need to.
Learn to manage your time so you don’t burn out. Sometimes being overly tired can wear thin on the nerves and cause you overreact to a situation because you just can’t think clearly. Take time out for yourself and do something that you enjoy. If you worked a traditional 9-5 business you wouldn’t work 24-7 and you should do that in social media or your business either.
This is something else I have learned the hard way. I take breaks when I need them and I take time to do what I enjoy even it’s just reading a book, spending time with my daughters and husband or talking to a family member on the phone. I had to stop feeling that everything must be done in a day.
If the answer to question four was yes and lack of training is the reason you aren’t succeeding, this is something that you can work on. Find others who are successful in your field and learn from them by reading their blogs and joining their mailing lists to gain the nuggets that they may share with you.
Ethical marketers don’t want to just make money, they genuinely want to help others to do so too and even if they offer paid courses, many times they are teaching some things for free too, through their blogs and lists. Take advantage of that. Soak it all in. Take their courses that are appropriate for your type of business when you can. The more you can learn and apply to your business, the more good results you will see, that will allow you to invest further into your business.
Always strive to learn and grow and this will help foster a self belief because you will know that you are making steps to improve yourself and your business. You will see the results and your self confidence will grow and project to others. When you have believe in you that will show through in everything you do.
To your success,
Alice Coaxum
If you are just starting out with article marketing you may be looking for a little help with your article conversions. In fact, even the best article marketers take time to tweak their style in order to achieve the very best rates possible. They know that the point of creating quality articles and adding it to various article sites is to attract their target audience.
Here are six helpful article marketing tips that can help you to
achieve even greater success with your article marketing campaigns.
- Treat your title like it’s the main star attraction. If your title doesn’t sound interesting, it’s more than likely that no one is going to take the time to read your article or even make it anywhere near the resource box where you have added links to your websites where you want readers to go. Think of your article title like a musical band performing. Who gets more focus, the opening act or the main act. Your title is the headliner. When creating your article, stop and take a little more time to create a real eye grabbing, traffic pulling title to attract more readers.
- No keyword stuffing allowed when you write your article. You need to make sure your Keyword Density is just right because most good article directories set limits on how often you can use your keywords within your article. The reason they do this is because the search engine spiders consider it keyword stuffing when your keyword is used to many times within an article. Keep it at a healthy ratio of about 2%, so this means that you could use your keyword phrase a total of 8 times in a 400 word article. Keep in mind that it is also is very awkward to read if every other word is your keyword. You wouldn’t talk this way so you wouldn’t want to write that way either. You want your article to sound as good as if you were saying the words to the reader yourself.
- Break your article up with bullet points when appropriate. When you use bullet points will make your article so much easier to read. Creating bullet point lists will allow people quickly skim your article first to get a brief idea of what it is about and then if they like what they are reading they are bound to either go on to the next part or go over your article more thoroughly from the beginning.
- Make spell-check your best friend before submitting your articles. However you don’t want to strictly rely on spell-check to make sure your spelling is correct, because even though it is good it doesn’t always catch every mistake. Take a little time and read through your article word by word, sentence by sentence, making sure not to skip anything to make sure it’s correct. You can even have a friend go through your article as well to see if they catch any mistakes.
- One of the fastest ways to get an article approved at a good article directory is to make sure your content isn’t riddled with errors. They know that some readers will be turned off and leave your article if they encounter a spelling error. The spelling police really do exist!
- Watch Out for trending topics that you can highlight in your articles. News shows and websites as well as magazines usually touch on a wide variety of hot niche topics. You can watch for trends or topics of interest to your target audience and then use them to quickly rank high with your timely articles.
- Help your articles to go viral once they are published on the internet. Now that your article is published it’s time to launch your article marketing campaign. Give your articles an extra boost by pinging your article link, tweeting or pinning your content, bookmarking it on sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, as well as sharing it on social networks like Facebook. You can also publish your content on your own blogs and websites too. Make sure that your bio isn’t too short and contains a link to where you want to direct traffic. This works best when the link is relevant to the article because the reader will be more apt to click if they are already interested in that topic.
Try some or all six of these article marketing tips and you will be on your way to gaining good traffic from your quality content. Because your article stays up year after year, a well written article can bring you traffic for quite some time. Do the work right once and keep getting rewarded.
Is It Unethical To Use PLR?
By · CommentsAre you having trouble coming up with content for your website, blog or autoresponder? Using PLR (private label rights) content is an easy and affordable way to get quality content that you can edit and use as you please without backlinking or naming the source you get it from.
The reasons vary why some turn to PLR content. For some it is used because they lack the necessary skills to write a good article or blog post. For others it may be a lack of time to write , they might just use it for ideas or they may need a constant flow of content in addition to what they are already writing.
There isn’t a right or wrong reason for buying PLR as long as it’s good quality and you use only in the ways the PLR seller allows you to, you will serve your readers and customers well, depending on what you are using your PLR for. Always read the license allowed to your with the PLR you will be purchasing so you know exactly what you can and can’t do.
I heard using PLR is wrong?
Everyone will not agree on this controversial topic depending on if you know much about PLR or if you do and are dead-set against it. If you are, that’s okay. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, though what I find is that most people I talk to who are against it, really don’t understand the concept of PLR and they feel that it is a form of plagiarism.
PLR content is content that you are purchasing the rights to, so it isn’t stealing or plagiarism. It’s not the same as someone scraping content from many different sites on the internet. I see products like that and it makes me mad because that is stealing. How can one actually put a site together from content belonging to someone else , not including public domain content, without their permission and failing to credit them or compensate them and think that it’s ok?
This is something that someone new to internet marketing may fall for because they don’t know any better but those who create products like this do know and they don’t care about anything but getting your money for their crappy products. They don’t care if you ruin your reputation as long as you fork over the dough.
Some people who want to add content to their blogs and sites just go on a copy and paste adventure, not even attempting to change a word or even scrape from a site or two. They actually think it’s okay to take all of the content they need from your site and add it to theirs because either they are new and uninformed or this is what some so called “Guru” has taught them. This isn’t the way and it’s far from okay.
Time for a change.
If you are doing this, it has to stop NOW. There is a much better way. Using PLR is an ethical way to get the content you need without having to shell out the big bucks.
With quality PLR being so affordable there is really no excuse to steal. When I say affordable I don’t mean PLR that you might pay five bucks for and get 1000 articles because most times that stuff is barely readable. If you aren’t skilled in article writing or rewriting or if you are short on time, you will be in the same exact boat as if you needed to write all the articles yourself. Don’t waste your time.
Some are reluctant to use anything that isn’t free.
Some are die hard freebie seekers and that’s okay too. I used to be one. If it wasn’t free I wasn’t interested. I didn’t understand why people paid to host their own sites or why they paid to learn. If you feel that way right now, I’m not going to tell you that you are wrong because it’s your business, blog or site and you have every right to run it the way you want to.
You could use free reprint articles from various article directories to fill out your blog and as content for your reports and autoresponders. You can still get great content this way, depending on who the author of the article is, but you can’t edit it and you must leave the bio box (the part of the article that advertises the writer of the article with a link of their choice) intact. If you don’t mind directing your traffic somewhere else than this is a viable solution for you.
What I personally learned the hard way is that I needed to invest in my business, sites or anything else I do, as much as I possibly and reasonably can. By doing this I reap benefits that it would take me longer to get, doing things the hard way. You do get what you pay for and this is just the way I choose to run my business. Paid services make it easier to do things that would require much manual labor. PLR is no different. It makes the writing and content gathering load so might lighter for many.
Does PLR product cookie cutter sites only?
Though many people directly copy and paste the articles without changing the titles, you don’t have to. You can use PLR and still have an original site. When you purchase PLR you get the right to edit it as you see fit and that means that you can end up with a different article than someone else once you add “YOU” to the equation by adding your thoughts and feelings, quotes, statistics, switching up sentences, paragraphs or even turning text into a PDF report, audio or video. Breathe “YOU” into the content if you want unique.
You can also add photos and videos that compliment your articles too. You don’t even have to use the title the article came with. Change the titles to interesting titles while still keeping the main keywords.
You really are only limited by your own creativity when it comes to using PLR. With quality PLR the hardest part is already done for you. How do you feel about PLR? I’d love to get your opinion, leave a comment with your 2 cents.
Do You Let Trials Knock You Down For The Count?
By · Comments
Like anything else in life, your online business isn’t always going to perfect. No matter how much you might hope it will be. Things will go wrong. It’s how you decide to react to trials and issues that arise that will determine if you will succeed or maintain success in your business.
Depending on the type of business you are in or have will determine the type of problems that can arise for you, so we may all be going through different types of stresses and problems but the fact remains that any problem can throw a monkey wrench into your business if you let it.
How do you react when things aren’t going the way you’d like them to? Does it force you to keep going or do you just give in and give up. Think about you and your business being like a boxer and the stress and problems that arise are your opponent. When the other fighter swings and connects with a really good hit, are you going to let them take you down or keep you down? Will you be knocked down for the count?
With my own businesses I have certainly experienced ups and downs.
My natural response to stress is to want to shut down and just say, forget it all. It puts me in a bad mood when things go wrong, but then my “Why” and my craving for my business to be a success kicks in. It helps me to keep going when I really don’t feel like turning the computer on, let alone doing any type of work, and I’d much rather curl up in bed with my Kindle and disappear into a good book or watch my favorite movies and television shows all day long. I now can recognize while I’m in that type of mood as opposed to realizing it later and it helps me to get through it much quicker.
There is nothing wrong with either of those activities but it is wrong if it’s stopping me from being productive, if I’m using those activities to avoid dealing with my business. Quickly one day of neglect can turn into days, weeks and months and before you know it your business can be completely at a standstill. In the past it didn’t used to take much to get me to the point of wanting to give up. I wanted success but I obviously didn’t want it bad enough. I had to learn how to manage my stress when problems would arise. I had to stop feeling inadequate and that I couldn’t be successful because … the reasons were numerous:
- I didn’t know how to blog or what to say.
- I had problems with the technical aspects of an online business.
- I couldn’t possibly sell anything to anyone.
- No one will care about what I have to say or what I can offer.
Any time I have ever gave in to the stress instead of sticking it out, the results were never good because giving up got me no where. Giving up didn’t erase any of my problems, I had to eventually find solutions.
It doesn’t mean that nothing ever goes wrong for me now and things will never be perfect. If you wait for perfection you might as well give up forever because it’s not going to happen. Unforeseen problems happen to all of us, even though we may try our best to have a back up plan or two.
My goal is to take it to the next level. Whatever success I have, I want to multiply that and help others to do the same. While our businesses may be different the first part of the solution is the same, we can’t give up.
If you are struggling with feelings of wanting to give up, you should take a little time to brainstorm and think about the things that attracted you to the particular business that you chose.
Do you still believe in it and want to make it work? If the answer to both of those questions are yes than you need to work through whatever the problem is. Your business will not become successful without you putting work into it. The level of success you see in your business is not an accident but rather a result of your past actions.
You can’t blame anyone for your problems either. We all make choices in our business and we choose whether we will allow a person to do this or that. One person shouldn’t make or break our business and neither should one problem or ten problems for that matter.
For example if you didn’t get that client you thought you were going to get, if that person who said they would join your MLM team or purchase from your business didn’t, should you give up? If you want it bad enough you have to keep going and not give up. Find a new client, a new team member or new customers. Never stop learning because that helps you to be come more efficient in your business. It can be done and it all depends on you and how you treat your business.
It’s okay if things make you upset, give yourself a few minutes to let it out and then move on to doing what you can. The quicker you jump back up and the harder you strive the faster you will get to where you want to be with your business.
So what can you do if you’re stuck in rut and can’t seem to get motivated? First you want to make sure that you are surrounding yourself with positive people and things. This will be upbuilding and uplifting to you. Positivity will help to motivate you and negativity will only pull you down even more. You want to march towards and not away from your success.
Keep in mind that success means different things to different people. For some it may mean enough income to replace or even double your current income, while for others it may simply mean having enough extra money to take a trip or pay a few bills. Never compare your business to someone else’s, that right there can be a source of stress. All the factors aren’t the same so why compare.
They might have started their business sooner than you did, they may have had more start up money or they might have put more time in than you did. The truth is that it really doesn’t matter. Your business is yours and theirs is theirs. Focus on your own business.
One book that I found very helpful and motivating is Grant Cardone’s “The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success And Failure.” In the book Grant talks about how there isn’t a shortage of success and I truly believe that. What does this mean for you? Even though someone else may be successful or even super successful doing the same exact thing as you, it does not mean that you can’t be successful at it too.
There can be more than one person who is successful at the same thing. Online is the same as the “real world”, there isn’t just one good doctor, lawyer, contractor or singer. There are many who are successful and the same applies online. Sometimes jealousies and feeling inadequate with yourself as a business person can be the very thing that will knock you down.
I bought my copy as an unabridged audio because sometimes I like to listen to books while I’m doing other activities. This is a book that I have listened to more than once and I know I will again because I find it so motivational. I also read and listen to other things that motivate and sharpen me. You have to find what works for you. Stay motivated and keep working at your business.
Tweak and change and switch it up until your business is just the way you want it to be. Your success may not be a straight line, your end result may not be exactly as how you started out. Be prepared to go as many rounds as it takes, come out swinging and roll with the punches. Your problems A. K. A. your opponent, may be bigger than you are, might dance around the ring, annoy you or may even hurt you a little bit, but you can show them who’s tougher and who has the most stamina as you fight back and stick it out. You are not a failure just because they things you may have tried has failed. Use it as a learning experience.
You will see that things actually start to fall in place when you take the appropriate actions as problems arise and when it seems like everything is going wrong. When your business begins to show you some success you’ll be so glad that you didn’t give up and it will motivate you to take it to the next level.
To Your Success,
Alice Coaxum
What Can Be Better Than My PLR Bundles?
By · CommentsIf you don’t what PLR content is, it’s content that you purchase the rights to be able to edit and use in the way you see fit.
My PLR (private label rights) bundles are full of myPLR content that I already sell at ShopForPLR.Com. I bundle some of those together and give you a reduced price which means you pay less than you would if you had purchased each pack separately.
There is so much that you can do with my PLR bundles like:
- Creating a niche website.
- Starting or adding to an existing blog.
- Using the content to create videos and audios.
- Adding content to your autoresponder.
- Creating a report or special article as a giveaway to entice others to join your list.
- Create an info product and sell it.
So what could be better than a bundle that gives you enough content to do all that ….
A discount on my bundles of course. So from now until Wednesday, you can take a whopping 15 bucks off of either of my PLR bundles. All you need to do to get your discount is to use Coupon Code “15OFF” to get $15 off of my Work At Home Bundle and “15discount” to get $15 off of my Health And Wellness Bundle, in the shopping cart and your bundle will be discounted immediately.
Grab your PLR bundles >>> http://shopforplr.com/?p=460 (Work At Home Bundle)
http://shopforplr.com/?p=612 (Health And Wellness PLR Bundle)
Have a wonderful and productive weekend,
Alice Coaxum
